I applied in-person. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Zillow (Seattle, WA) in May 2016
Interview
Do not go interview at Zillow!! they treat their candidates horribly. See below:
Process started with a phone interview. The interview was challenging but not too much. I was told that I did very well on it and was brought for a full onsite. The onsite consisted of 4 - one hour long technical interviews, 1 lunch, 1 manager interview and a last session with the recruiter. All together over 6 hours.
During the interviews, I felt that I was doing well, and for the most part received positive signals from the interviewers. That is besides one interviewer with whom I had a communication gap and I could not understand what he wanted. I got a call several days later with a rejection. I was very surprised and asked the recruiter to get back to me with feedback. The recruiter promised to call, but never did. Only after I reached out to him again he sent me a templated answer in an email that their policy was not to share feedback. I learnt later through an indirect (but reliable) source that there was only one interviewer who gave me negative feedback and due to this I was rejected.
1. A company that rejects someone based on 1 interview after keeping him onsite for six straight hours is not a company that values candidates.
2. To make things worse, the fact that the recruiter ignored me, and later did not even try to give me some sort of feedback for me to improve on just shows the general attitude of Zillow towards candidates.
3. I will never return to Zillow again, and I suggest to anyone who values their own time, not to bother with them. I'm a senior engineer and I've interviewed in many companies. Even at those that I did not succeed, I felt that those companies valued my time. Zillow does not. They waste your entire day and then reject you based on a single fault while not even providing any reasons for it.
A company that treats its candidates this way, will eventually treat its employees the same. From my perspective, I'm very happy that I did not end up there.
Thank you for your feedback. I understand it may be frustrating to not receive detailed feedback or areas for improvement after an interview; however, it is our policy to not share more than the final decision. We consider all elements of the feedback carefully before making a decision and do so in a collaborative manner. All perspectives are helpful in how we continue to improve our candidate experience, so thank you for leaving a review.
Application
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Zillow
Interview
- Informational call with recruiter
- Technical phone screen with hiring manager (60 min)
- Onsite interview: 5 technical interviews + (non-scored) lunch interview
Most of the interviews were with potential teammates or adjacent teams. Each interview was pretty well-structured: "I'm going to start by X, then Y, then Z, then leave time for your questions at the end." Each interview included a "culture fit" question as well; together, these mean that the coding portion of the hour was smaller than at some other companies.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Every technical interview included a "culture fit" question. Ex: What was a time you made an unpopular decision?
Never heard results or feedback. I will assume they are too busy solving the world's critical virtual home tour problems to show common courtesy. Interviewer was late. Interviewer made sure to let me know three times that their title was Director and the position was in the group he "owned". Tech question was from the '90's, probably as long as he has been asking it. Too busy to answer my questions because his next meeting was "far away". Ballmer-era spinout with antiquated engineering. Bullet dodged.
I'm very sorry to hear this was your experience with us. Could you please email me more specific information at annie@zillowgroup.com so that we can look into this further ? - Annie Rihn
1. Introductions
2. Interviewer will offer two timed brain teasers and give the interviewee a couple minutes to offer a solution. If the interviewer agrees with your solution then interviewee will have a few minutes to then code the agreed solution. Interviewee must work fast given the limited amount of time.
3. Final questions
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Interviewer will offer two brain teasers that interviewee must code and solve
Thank you for sharing your interview feedback with us. If you have additional insight around your negative experience, please feel free to reach out to me at annie@zillowgroup.com